Frank Sinatra Inside the Legendary Performer’s Palm Springs Compound

“Orange is the happiest color,” Frank Sinatra said of his favorite hue, which showed up in his clothes and his houses. Sinatra bought a modest house at the Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage in the mid-1950s and lived there until May 1995.

Photography by Mary E. Nichols and John Bryson

Sinatra’s bedroom.

Sinatra’s simple bedroom, with a double bed, contains many of his possessions: a statue of St. Francis, a train set, embroidered pillows. Sinatra’s designer Bea Korshak, who he hired to help renovate the interiors, changed some colors to peach, “but I couldn’t quite get the orange out of him,” she said.

Photography by Mary E. Nichols and John Bryson

Sinatra’s projection room.

“The projection room had gold draperies and a busy carpet,” said Korshak. “We redid it very simply, with a lot of off-white textured fabrics.” In the room are portraits of friends Nat King Cole, Debbie Reynolds and Ronald Reagan.

Photography by Mary E. Nichols and John Bryson

Sinatra in one of his guest rooms.

Sinatra, who was a voracious reader, sits in the Kennedy room. The guest room, where the senator stayed for two days in 1960 during a campaign visit to California, was later converted into a library, but a plaque commemorating Kennedy’s visit remained.

Photography by Mary E. Nichols and John Bryson

Sinatra’s salon.

In 1971, some of Sinatra’s employees gave him a gift — a train caboose — which quickly became the compound’s main hangout. Inside the caboose was a full-service salon, complete with a barber’s chair, a professional hair dryer, a massage table and a scale and a sauna.

Photography by Mary E. Nichols and John Bryson

Sinatra poolside with Yul Brynner.

Sinatra sits beside the pool with actor Yul Brynner, a frequent houseguest and a close friend. The compound eventually grew to include 18 bedrooms and 23 baths. “It was almost a hotel at times,” recalled designer Bea Korshak. “Frank liked having people around him.”